Many people interact with more than one computing device each day. Some of these devices are stationary or positioned at fixed locations, including desktop computers, workstations, personal data servers, and televisions. Some of these devices are mobile, including cellular telephones, tablet computers, Ultrabook computers, laptop computers, and music players.
When a user moves away from a stationary computing device but wants to continue to use an application, the user usually locks or shuts down the stationary device and starts a related application afresh on the mobile device. Similarly, when a user arrives at a stationary computing device but wants to continue to use an application from a mobile device, the user usually locks or shuts down the mobile device application and begins a similar application afresh on the stationary device. For example, consider a scenario where a user may be reading a web page article on a home desktop computer, but leaves for the office before he or she can finish reading the article. If the user wishes to continue reading the article on his or her mobile smartphone with internet browsing capability, the user will manually enter the web page article address, and must find his or her location within the article.
Although manual transfer of application context information is possible, this manual transfer can be time consuming, and requires additional steps and configuration by the user. Additionally, while a user may know when he or she is about to leave a stationary computing device, a transfer of application context information may not automatically occur in response to a change of the user's location.